News BulletinSPRING 2019 VOLUME 43, NUMBER 2 United Nurses of Alberta WAGE REOPENER BARGAINING: Bill 9 called breach CANADA’S of contract and violation of Constitutional rights NURSES PAGE 3 Deliver DAPHNE WALLACE honoured by CFNU with Powerful Bread & Roses Award Message in PAGE 17 Fredericton JANE SUSTRIK PAGE 16 Receives AFL International Daphne Wallace at the Women’s Day Award 445 CFNU Biennium in Fredericton PAGE 8 2 Published by the United Nurses of Alberta four times The message for nurses in 2019 a year for our members Editor: David Climenhaga CARE! NOT CUTS! Production: Kelly de Jong Provincial Office SUMMERTIME is upon us and before So in this edition of NewsBulletin, 700-11150 Jasper Avenue NW we know it, fall will be here – bringing you’ll find an important survey asking Edmonton AB T5K 0C7 challenges of a sort Alberta’s nurses have you what your priorities for bargain- p 780-425-1025/1-800-252-9394 f 780-426-2093 not faced since the mid-1990s. ing in 2020 are. Please take the time to fill it out. Southern Alberta Regional Office The return of needless austerity to health 300-1422 Kensington Road NW care funding and the organizational Turning to the federal election expect- Calgary AB T2N 3P9 p 403-237-2377/1-800-661-1802 chaos that inevitably follows it is not ed this fall, during the recent Canadian f 403-263-2908 happy news, but it is a political reality Federation of Nurses Unions biennial www.una.ca now being confronted by nurses across conference in Fredericton I had the [email protected] Canada, not just in Alberta. privilege of taking part in a “Care, Not facebook.com/unitednurses Cuts” demonstration on the lawn of twitter.com/unitednurses In New Brunswick, Ontario, and else- New Brunswick’s Legislative Building where on the Prairies, politicians are Executive Board with close to 1,000 other nurses from drawing on the same old 1990s austerity President: Heather Smith across Canada. h 780-437-2477 w 780-425-1025 playbook – asking nurses, other health 1st Vice-President: Jane Sustrik care workers, and public employees I reminded participants we must push c w 780-915-8367 780-425-1025 to pay a special “tax” in the form of back when we are confronted by highly 2nd Vice-President: Daphne Wallace c 780-991-4036 w 780-425-1025 or reduced incomes and expectations to ideological governments committed 403-237-2377 subsidize big tax cuts for corporations to cutting public services, reducing the Secretary/Treasurer: Karen Craik and the wealthy. scope of public health care, and privatiz- c w or 403-510-5163 780-425-1025 ing whenever they can. 403-237-2377 Here in Alberta, our provincial gov- North District: ernment has already taken steps to This makes what we do in the campaign Roxann Dreger Emily Lozeron North Central District: interfere with our provincial contract leading up to this fall’s federal election Terri Barr Christina Doktor and collective bargaining for our 2019 historically important. Canada can’t Eva Brown Jenna Knight wage-reopener. afford a federal government committed Teresa Caldwell Karen Kuprys Jennifer Castro Nicole Van Dijk to the ideology of privatization and profit The government says Bill 9, the Public Central District: above all. If that is the result of the elec- Sector Wage Arbitration Deferral Act, Donica Geddes Wanda Zimmerman tion, we will never achieve pharmacare Sandra Zak is intended simply to delay arbitration – so essential, and now so very close. South Central District: until its “blue-ribbon panel” on Alberta’s Eyituoyo Abati Ken Ewanchuck Marie Aitken Susan Fisk finances reports in August. But since No one knows better than nurses what Barbara Campbell Amanda Moe the panel’s chair has already written a under-funding of public services and Marie Corns JoAnne Rhodes report calling for legislated 2-per-cent chronic understaffing in health care will South District: Sharon Gurr John Terry wage rollbacks after “consultations” do to the quality of care we can deliver. with public sector unions, it’s hard to Directors No one knows better than we do what believe a genuine consultative approach Labour Relations: putting cuts ahead of care will do to our David Harrigan as demanded by Canada’s Constitution is patients and their families. Finance and Administrative Services: what the government has in mind. Darlene Rathgeber So let’s make sure our politicians get Bill 9 also gives cabinet extraordinary Information Systems: the message this summer and fall: Andrew Johnson powers to cut your salaries – and those Care, not Cuts! of thousands of other public employees PUBLICATIONS MAIL In Solidarity, AGREEMENT #40064422 – just by changing regulations with the RETURN UNDELIVERABLE stroke of a pen. No debate; no need to CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO: UNITED NURSES OF ALBERTA consult the Legislature. 700-11150 JASPER AVENUE NW EDMONTON AB T5K OC7 In the same time frame, we must prepare Heather Smith for the next round of contract bargaining. President, United Nurses of Alberta United Nurses of Alberta NewsBulletin Summer 2019 Volume 43, Number 2 3 WAGE RE-OPENER BARGAINING UCP legislation putting UNA wage-reopener on hold called breach of contract and violation of Charter rights THE United Conservative Party and claimed it does not break public-sec- UNA members, including Government has passed Bill 9, which tor contracts, the bill clearly breaches Secretary Treasurer both UNA’s current collective agreement Karen Craik and First delays collective bargaining and arbi- VP Jane Sustrik, were at tration for tens of thousands of public and the Charter rights of UNA members. the Legislative Building employees including UNA members until UNA’s collective agreement with Alberta in Edmonton to show the end of October. their unhappiness with Health Services included a wage-re- the introduction of Bill MLAs gave the Public Sector Wage opener provision in its final year, 2019, 9, and a comment by Arbitration Deferral Act first reading which allowed resolution of an impasse a government MLA through interest arbitration. In the event that suggested nurses on June 13, indicating the government’s aren’t true Albertans. intention to pass the bill as swiftly as the parties went to arbitration, the agree- possible. Bill 9 was expected to become ment stated: “The arbitration hearing law following its final passage by MLAs shall be held by no later June 30, 2019.” on June 20. Those conditions had been met when the government stepped in with orders to While Finance Minister Travis Toews Alberta Health Services not to comply portrayed the legislation as a mere proce- with the terms of the contract. dural delay while the government awaits the report of its so-called “blue ribbon” Bill 9 clearly amends this aspect of the panel on the state of Alberta’s finances, collective agreement. CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 United Nurses of Alberta NewsBulletin Summer 2019 Volume 43, Number 2 4 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 UNA President Heather When the agreement with AHS was Smith, accompanied by negotiated, UNA agreed to two years of other public-sector union zero pay increases in return for the abil- presidents, addressed the media on June 13 about ity to negotiate a wage increase in 2019. UNA’s concerns with the So Bill 9 also strips the contract of the government’s plan to use provision on which UNA’s agreement to legislation to override the previous wage freeze was based. collective agreements. With final passage of Bill 9, UNA’s negotiations are on hold until Halloween. By then, the government is expected to introduce legislation allowing more aggressive intervention in public-sector collective bargaining and arbitration, although the time line appears to have been designed to delay controversy until after the fall federal election. UNA applied to the courts to overturn decisions by the arbitrator and the Labour Relations Board allowing the arbitration to be delayed beyond the date stipulated in the contract. But a technical decision June 5 by the LRB said it did not have legal jurisdiction to hear UNA’s applica- tion to quash the arbitrator’s ruling. The Board said UNA must apply to the courts to overturn the arbitrator’s orig- inal May 15 decision, which the union argued went beyond the powers of the arbitrator. UNA also filed a court appeal The legislation impacts 24 collective of the arbitrator’s original ruling. agreements covering roughly 180,000 Those actions were followed within days public sector employees, some direct- by the introduction of what Opposition ly employed by the government but critics are now calling “the Bad Faith most by public agencies like Alberta Analysis of the Bargaining Act” on June 13. Health Services. bill suggests the UNA President Heather Smith told Analysis of the bill suggests the gov- government could reporters and union members in the ernment could roll back wages with- roll back wages Rotunda of the Legislative Building that out going to the legislature, simply by without going to day the level of interference in collective amending regulations in a closed door bargaining in this bill goes further than cabinet meeting. the legislature, anything done by premier Ralph Klein’s UNA and other unions will be meeting in simply by amending government in the mid-1990s. “Even in the days ahead to chart their response to the dark days of the 1990s, the Alberta regulations in Bill 9. UNA instructed its legal counsel government never reached into collective a closed door to review its options for challenging agreements and violated the constitution- this breach of the contract and violation cabinet meeting. al rights of public-sector workers.” of its members’ Charter rights through the courts.